675 new cases, 2 new deaths

Kern County Public Health reported 675 new coronavirus cases and two new deaths from the virus in its weekly update Thursday. The numbers represent cases reported to the agency, but they don’t include the cases of people who have used only home tests that aren’t reported to county officials.

The new cases bring the total number reported in Kern County residents since the start of the pandemic to 308,788, with 2,615 total deaths.

There have been 5,602 confirmed cases of the omicron variant, which Kern County Public Health labels as a variant of concern.

There have been 4,156 cases of the delta variant in the county.

According to the state, 41 patients were hospitalized with COVID-19 in Kern County as of Wednesday, the most recent figure available. The state data indicated six patients were hospitalized in intensive care units as of Wednesday.

Since Jan. 21, 2021, the first date a resident of Kern was considered fully vaccinated, a total of 71.22 percent of all cases have been reported in unvaccinated individuals and 83.13 percent of all hospitalizations have occurred among the unvaccinated.

Broken down by age, 56,831 people under the age of 18 have contracted COVID-19, followed by 173,490 people ages 18 to 49, 50,536 people ages 50 to 64 and 27,361 people 65 and older.

The public can find more data on Kern County Public Health Services’ COVID19 dashboard at https:// kernpublichealth.com/ covid-19_dashboard.

The health department is reminding residents they can find testing locations by going to kernpublichealth.com, clicking on the COVID-19 button and looking for “find a testing site near you.”

The public can go to https://kernpublichealth. com/coronavirus-vaccine/ for current vaccination information.